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--- I ---
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ALLEN, W.E.D. (Ed.), Russian Embassies to the Georgian Kings – 1589-1605, The Hakluyt Society, Second Series No. CXXXVIII, Cambridge University Press 1970 (pp. 288-289).
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COMMENTARY 15
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Metsk, Batsk (ref. Chap. 2, p. 111, n. 1)
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'Dont la position est absolument inconnue' Brosset (EC/BHP/II, Nos. 14-15, col. 236). Some of the topographical indications of this passage are obscure but it would seem that the Georgians were proposing a route up the valley of the Argun, leading by tracks over the main chain of [the] Caucasus [mountains] into the upper valleys of the Aragvi and the Alazani. This route would cross the territory of the Akko Chechens (Shikh murza's Okok) who were friendly to the Russians and had a sloboda at Terek-town (see Introduction, Section 5 and Commentary 14). The villages of Upper and Lower Kii (Akki) lie on an affluent of the Tchanti (White) Argun, the westerly feeder of the Argun (Baddeley, RFC, Vol. II, index under 'Kii' and Map V, and for description of Argun route as far as the Tchanti Argun, ibid., Vol. I, pp. 90 ff.). West of the Tchanti Argun a track crosses the Basti-lam (lam = mountain, ridge, in Ingush), the boundary between Chechnya and Georgia (ibid., Vol. I, p. 114) to Shatil (1,524 m.) west of the great peaks of Tebulos-mta (4,494 m.); then by the Anatori Pass to Khamkheti and paths leading to the upper valleys of the Aragvi and the Alazani. From Shatil, Baddeley states, a ride to Tiflis 'in summer or early autumn' would always be feasible. Compare Radde's 'Marschroute', 1876, in Die Chews'uren und ihr Land, as far as Djarego on the Tchanti Argun. West of this river Meesti ridge or plateau is marked on Güldenstädt's map; it seems to correspond to Miskin-doukh of Baddeley's Map V. Bronevski (Vol. II, p. 166) refers to an Ingush commune of Meesti, and also to the Aka and Betsi communes of the upper Kombulei. These indications explain the Metsk mountain range of Zvenigorodski. Amaley is the river Kombulei (Reineggs/W., Vol. I, p. 311; Bronevski, Vol. II, pp. 91, 152, 160), whose upper valley runs parallel with the Sunzha, the Assa and the Argun, and finally enters the Terek a few miles above Tartarup. Burnash remains obscure.
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Reineggs/W. (Vol. II, p. 39), described the Basti as a sub-tribe of the Kists, then settled on the left bank of the middle Sunzha. They were neighbours of the Alti (cf. Baddeley, RFC, Vol. I, p. 79, for the commune of Aldee, famous as the base of Sheikh Mansur in 1785). These Basti may have been a fragment of an older Batsi agglomeration along the Sunzha. The Batsi (Georgian plur. Batsebi) were held to be Kists (Baddeley, RFC, Vol I, p. 90) who are related to the Chechens (Reineggs/W., Vol. I, p. 41). (Bronevski, Vol. II, p. 158, finds that the Kist language has some resemblance to Tush, and he believes therefore that the (Georgian) Tushes must be of Kist origin; it would seem here that he is in fact referring to the Batsi whose dialect has been much influenced by Georgian: see Desheriev.) In 1575 the communes of the Batsi in the tchanti-Argun district sought the protection of King Levan of Kakheti against the Avar nutsal; they were allowed to pasture their flocks in the highlands of upper Kakheti, south of the main ridge of [the] Caucasus [mountains] and south-east of the great peak of Tebulos-mta and the Kadowanis Pass (3,048 m.), where they mixed with the Tushes. During the last century they moved as far south as Akhmeti and Alvan on the Alazani (cf. Desheriev, Batsbiyski yazyk, and Radde, Chews'uren, pp. 330 ff., and map). For the suggestion that the Batsebi represent a surviving fragment of the classical Bessoi, see Karst, OM, p. 504; also Allen, 'Ex Ponto, I and II' in BK, No. 30/31 (1958), p. 51.
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COMMENTARY 20(c)
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'Soni-land' (=Sonskaya Zemlya): note on the ethnology of the eristavate of the Aragvi (ref. Chap. 3, p. 133, n. 2)
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Neighbours of the Didos to the north-west were the Sodi of Pliny, VI, 10, whom Trever (Ocherki po istorii I kulture Kavkazskoy Albanii, Moskva, 1959, p. 202, n. 3) equates with the Tsavdi. There is a reference to the Tsavdi in the fifth century A.D. when they are bracketed with the Lipni or Lbini (Trever, p. 202), who are none other than the Lupeni of the classical authors (Trever, p. 48), a people perhaps to be identified with a wolf totem (cf. Commentary 41 for the cult of a black dog without spots surviving among the Didos).
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The name Tsavdi corresponds to the Tsova of Wakhusht (Brosset ed., Description géographique de la Géorgie par le Tsarévich Wakhoucht publiée d'après l'original autograph par M. Brosset, St Petersburg, 1842, p. 327). It is possible to pinpoint the Tsavdi/Sodi from Wakhusht's account of Tusheti at the beginning of the eighteenth century (see Brosset's ed., pp. 327-9 and map 4 – 'Kakheth'). Tusheti is placed north of Mount Lopeti and the Lopotis-tsqali, clearly toponymic fossils of the old Lupeni, i.e. Lop-eti = the country of the Lup-en-i). The district lies on the flanks of the main chain where it forms the watershed of the Argun flowing north to the Terek and the Andi-koysu flowing north-east to the Sulak and the Caspian. Tusheti is divided into two valleys running from north-west to south-east. It has its own river (Tchanti-Argun on Baddeley's, The rugged flanks of Caucasus, Oxford, 1940, Map II where the place-name “Shoundee” still survives) which goes to join the Sona (here Argun) which crosses Tchatchan (Chechnia) and at Baraghan falls into the Terg (Terek). Tsova is beyond the Caucasus (i.e. south of the main ridge) in the direction of Pankisi; below Tsova is Gometsari, and lower down Tchaghma; from this last place the route leads to the valleys of Torga (cf. Commentary 28: The Village of Tog) and Lopoti: there are situated the principal villages of Tusheti but there are thirty-seven others. Of the remnants of the 'Tsoff' at the beginning of the twentieth century Baddeley, The rugged flanks of Caucasus, Vol. I, p. 90, observes that “amongst the Tousheens there is a whole community, known formerly by the name of Tsoff... which speaks a dialect of the Kist (Ingush) language and is, presumably, of Kist origin, though cut off from them as far back as history goes'.
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Another group of these Sodi/Tsavdi/Tsova maintained their individuality into mediaeval times in the district of Sagaredzho, along the middle reaches of the Iori, since Janashvili, in his edition of Wakhusht (p. 104, n. 351), cites Kartlis-Tskhovreba, Vol. I, p. 239, for Sudzheti as an alternative name for Sagaredzho, naming the inhabitants Sudzhi or Sodzhi – forms which closely correspond to the classical Sodi.
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Genko, Iz kulturnogo proshlogo Ingushey in Zapiski Kollegii Vostokovedov, Leningrad, 1930, p. 698, recalls that Tsiskarov, in his 'Notes on Tusheti' published in 1849 in the Tiflis journal Kavkaz, gives 'Vabua' as a second and ancient name of the original homeland of the Tsov who were then inhabiting the enclave among the Tush. He comments that 'there can be no doubt that the ancient Tsov name for Tsovata, Vabua, is identical with the tribal appellation of the Veppintsy (contemporary form fäppij) who were grouped around their ancient centre Erzi aul (Arzee on Baddeley's The rugged flanks of Caucasus, Map II) – on the river Arm-khi (Kistinka) which enters the Terek some versts below Old Lars'. According to the same author (p. 707), erziy (ärzij) is the Ingush word for 'eagle' – 'in all probability an old Iranian loan-word'. This may be compared with the totemic implications of 'Tsounta' and 'Tsesi', see p. 315 above. In the present writer's view, the Veppintsy (fäppij) can be a remnant of the classical Bessi of Macedonia and the Psessoi of the Cimmerian Bosporus, a widespread ethnic group of very ancient origins: for refs. See Bédi Karthlisa, Nos. 30-1, article by Allen, 'Ex Ponto I: Heni-Veneti and Os-Alans', passim. To the same remote background belong the Soni/Sodi/Sonti/Tsavdi, who can be identified with the varying forms Heni in classical sources.
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In the 'Conversion of Georgia', a record compiled in the tenth century and relating to events of the sixth century, the Daryal gorge is named the 'Tsanar ravine' (cf. Genko, p. 711). The identity of Tsanar (in Georgian Ts'anar with ejaculative ts') with Ptolemy's Zanarioi has been accepted by Minorsky (Hudūd al-'Ālam: 'The regions of the world', Oxford, 1937, pp. 400 ff.). Zan-ari-oi, in fact represents the root zan>son with the duplication of the Svanian plural in -ar and the Greek plural in -oi. 'In the ninth to tenth century A.D. the Tsanar are often identified with the Kakhs. Finally, the Georgian-speaking peoples entirely absorbed the Tsanar... As regards the nucleus of the Tsanar trible, N.Y. Marr (Izvestiya Rossiyskoy Akademii Nauk, 1916, pp. 1397-8), hinted at its common origin with the present-day Chechen. Such is also the opinion of A.N. Genko, the undisputed authority on that part of the Caucasus' (Minorsky, ibid., and Genko, 711).
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--- II ---
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MOSER, Louis, The Caucasus and its People, with a Brief History of their Wars, and a Sketch of the Achievements of the Renowned Chief Schamyl, London 1856 (pp. 67-69).
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6. The Medzeghee or Kists, are often called Tchetchenzes, from the name of their most influential tribe. They possess the virtues and qualities peculiar to the Circassian races, and especially a most enthusiastic love of freedom and independence, submitting with the utmost reluctance to a foreign yoke, and watching with keen vigilance every opportunity of throwing it off.
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Their villages consist of flat-roofed stone houses, protected by walls and towers, capable of resisting an energetic attack. Some of these tribes possess an abundance of cattle and corn, but they are nevertheless very frugal in their mode of living. They usually confine themselves to the district bordered on the west by the Terek (in the part where it flows northward), on the east by the Aksai and Engure, and bounded on the north by the Lesser Kabarda and Sundcha, and to the south by the Snowy Mountains.
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The most influential tribes among them are:---
1. The Ingushes, or Galgai, who reside on the Kumbolei, and in the plains between the latter and the banks of the Assai.
2. The Kists, north-west of the Ingushes, and extending to the Argun.
3. The Karabulaks, from the Zarthan to the Argun; and lastly,
4. The Tchetchenzes, who are found along the banks of the Argun, the Aksai, and the Sundcha. Several branches of this tribe inhabit the Snowy Mountain ridges, and of these the principal are:---
a. The Tchavi, from the Aragvi to the springs of the Yori.
b. The Tuschi, found to the east of the latter, on the Alazani.
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--- III ---
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ABERCROMBY, John, A Trip through the Eastern Caucasus, with a Chapter on the Languages of the Country, London 1889.
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For the first time in the Caucasus I saw a rainbow, which Mejid knew as "Peighamber's girdle," or the girdle of the Prophet. The Tush, who are closely connected in language with the Chechents, call it "the girdle of the sky"; the latter people "the bow of the sky." (p. 127)
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Half an hour's ride, however, along the right bank of the stream brought us opposite the village of Shatil, 4677 feet above the sea, and inhabited by a different race from the Chechents. Tatar called them Tush, but strictly speaking they were Khevsurs, an offshoot of the Georgians. Some of the Tush are, linguistically at least, Chechents, but the word seems often applied to the Georgian-speaking highlanders; for I could never get Mejid, who said he had often seen them at Nukha, to allow they were anything but Georgians. The Chechents-speaking Tush call themselves Batsav, and live south-east of the Khevsurs. (p. 172)
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--- IV ---
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BADDELEY, The Conquest of the Caucasus, London 1908
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The men of the Lioublin regiment lost their colonel, Korneeloff, cousin of the hero of Sevastopol, but bayoneted those who had killed him and hacked off their heads. The Tousheens, too, the bravest of the many brave races of the Caucasus, who contributed a small body to the native contingent, kept up their time-honoured custom of cutting off the right hand of a slain or wounded enemy (see note), and in condemning the cruelty habitually practised by the semi-savage warriors of Daghestan and Tchetchnia it is only fair to remember that their Christian foemen, who were also the invaders of their country, frequently stooped to similar practices.
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Note: Shaté, a celebrated Tousheen warrior, who accompanied Vrevsky's Deedo expedition in 1857, had no less than seventy of these ghastly trophies nailed to his walls, and no Tousheen could obtain a bride who had not at least one severed right hand to show. The Tousheens were Christians, of Georgian extraction. (p. 398)
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